FILM IN REVIEW; Save Me

By NATHAN LEE

Published: September 5, 2008

CORRECTION APPENDED

SAVE ME

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Robert Cary

1 hour 36 minutes; not rated

''Save Me'' establishes a clumsy dialectical agenda straight (so to speak) out of the gate, crosscutting between a day in the life of Mark (Chad Allen), a cocaine-addled young man with a taste for messy sex in cheap motels, and a group of hymn-singing churchgoers with affiliations to the Genesis House, a retreat devoted to converting gay men to heterosexuality. Chad, hitting rock bottom, is shuffled off to Genesis by his brother, and with a quickness made possible less by the power of Jesus than by schematic screenwriting, casts aside his old habits and cheerfully embraces shiny, happy asexuality.

And yet, as the unreconstructed gay might say, look out, girl! Here comes Ted (Stephen Lang), a hunky fellow resident, and the next thing you know Chad and Ted are kicking it with Satan over cigarettes and furtive man-on-man action.

Directed by Robert Cary from a screenplay by Robert Desiderio that never quite shakes off its aura of second-rate made-for-TV movie, ''Save Me'' has a lot of heart but little nerve and no surprise.

Judith Light is very good as Gayle, the stern yet loving mistress of Genesis house. But like everyone in the picture, she's saddled with a reductive motivation (a gay son lost to suicide) that undercuts the film's genuine sympathy for the emotional hazards of gay life. NATHAN LEE

PHOTO: Chad Allen's character hits rock bottom and is sent to a retreat devoted to converting gay men to heterosexuality in ''Save Me.'' (PHOTOGRAPH BY FIRST RUN FEATURES)

Correction: September 17, 2008, Wednesday
A film review on Sept. 5 about ''Save Me'' confused some characters and actors. It is Mark, not Chad, who is sent to the Genesis House retreat for converting gay men to heterosexuality. (Mark is played by Chad Allen; there is no character named Chad). The hunky fellow resident is Scott (played by Robert Gant), not Ted (Stephen Lang). And it is Mark and Scott -- not ''Chad and Ted'' -- who partake of cigarettes and ''furtive man-on-man action.''